[Christine Brooks]

28 July 2021. Progress update. I have made the small central pond and I am waiting for the bridge to arrive so that the track can be diverted to cross the water. I took delivery of 3 locos bought at auction a few days ago. They all run well. When I inspected them I found a small switch mounted on the chassis on all 3. This turned out to be an on/off switch which is a great idea. I expect most people instal them but I havn't seen them mentioned in any magazine articles. I intend to add switches to my USA locos to save having to install a mobile switch panel to isolate track sections. I can only see that I will need to run one loco at a time for the forseeable future as I only have a single track line.
Photos of the three locos plus Lyn that I already had.

George and Gladys

Exe and Lyn

All 4 together. Looks a bit like they are in a prehistoric jungle, hope that there arn't any dinosaurs around!

 

[Babz]

What a lovely collection you have.Are any live steam? What is your next plan after you get the Bridge.I am looking for a Truss bridge in Metal 2 track about 4 feet long Yours is very nice indeed. Babs

 

[Christine Brooks]

What a lovely collection you have.Are any live steam? What is your next plan after you get the Bridge.I am looking for a Truss bridge in Metal 2 track about 4 feet long Yours is very nice indeed. Babs

They are all electric, one day I might get some live steam. Our local auctioneers had a sale earlier in the year which had several Roundhouse locos but I thought it was better to spend money on actually building a railway to run first rather than gather more stock. The bridge will only be about 18 inches long so not as impressive as yours will be. I am hopeing to get permission to extend the line further so I will need another bridge/viaduct to start the extension.

Thanks for the nice comments.
Chris

 

[Babz]

Hi Christine My railway will only be Electric per say. I did have a couple of Gas fired steam Roundhouse loco's and they are impressive but I am scared of Gas ,and my interest changed mainly to Swiss as i find them very Interesting in many ways. I am not sure that my bridge will be that impressive we shall see. I add a few pics of some ofmy collection Thesteam one is a Cog mountain Engine from the Ballenberg line near Interlaken Switzerland.The other two are from the Rhb. I hope you like them. Babs

 

[Christine Brooks]

Hello Babs, Your collection looks good. I fin the cog locos fascinating to watch. I have never been on a European one but rode to the top of Snowdon 30 years ago and then we walked back down to Llanberis. I took several photographs of the trains on the way down, a really great day out. Look forward to more from you.
Chris

 

[Christine Brooks]

Progress report. The line has now been diverted to cross the end of the small pond over a girder bridge. I also added two sidings to the station area to make a frieght yard. The track needs a bit of work yet, some joints need electrically bonding for reliable running etc.
\

Two views of Emily on a test run over the new section.

 

[Christine Brooks]

It is now September and I havn't made a lot of progress with the railway, too many other projects to complete at the moment. I am still finding failed joints when having a running session so the soldering iron has been out again. I expecct that eventually I will need to bond all the joints. I also had to re-align one curved section whihc was causing derailments with some of my kit built stock.
Last week a friend wanted to play with his boy's toy ( a drone ) so took some aerial video of the line. I have taken a few still from it. These include some of the "station staff" i.e. some of the Westies.

As you can see, the line is not that big at present, I hope to eventually extend from the end and curve back round to run along the inside of the adjacent pergola with a terminal station there.

 

[Christine Brooks]

Here is ashort video of some of my UK narrow gauge stock.

Unfortunately the autofocus on the camera is a bit out on some sequences. I find it difficult using the live preview screen when composing shots, especially against the light. I noticed a bad track joint when playing back the video, this is not apparent when just watching trains. The sounds are real, not dubbed on, the camera microphone really amplifies the sound on the freight wagons, they are most realistic.

 

[Christine Brooks]

I seem to have something that keeps digging around the trackside and covering the track with loose stones and earth. This has gone on for a few weeks now. At first I thought it was just blackbirds scratching around for food and that when the plants at the side had grown a bit and covered the loose soil it woukd take care of itself. Over the last few days it has changed from being a mild nuisance to being a real disaster. Yesterday morning I found a large length of track and one point buried in soil and stones. This was mostly along the rock cutting. I cleared the track at lunchtime and by 16.00 it had been buried again. I suspected the wood pigeon population here as we have a great number of them and the cause damage to many plants. This morning the track was buried again, see pictures below.

This last picture is of an area which looks like it was dug from a hole under the stone on the top left so is probably rodents.

Having thought for a bit I remembered that I had some off cuts of wire mesh left over from making a run for the cats. I used this to make a cover for the worst affected length of track.

I will see what tomorrow brings.
This afternoon when doing a quick bit of weeding further along I found rat droppings so I have set a rat trap along the line there. Living in the country with chicken farms nearby etc we do get a lot of rats. At one stage I gave up feeding the wild birds because the rats were getting more food than the birds!

 

[alanoes]

Hi Chris,
Great video
I was just going to reply saying that you need to keep the pruning in check with a garden railway, but it seems you have bigger problems to think about.
Hope you get this sorted.
Loved the aerial shots too.
Regards
Alan

 

[Christine Brooks]

Hello Alan,
Planting camomile along the line seemed like a good idea at the time but it grows really fast. I planted the first lot a bit too close so that grows over the rails quickly. It doesn't take too long to prune back before running trains and I like the effect it gives when running my UK stock.
Thanks for liking the video.
Best wishes,
Chris

 

[Christine Brooks]

So far so good. It seems that the wire mesh "tunnels" have stopped the stones being piled up on the track. One was slightly dislodged yesterday morning but today they were undisturbed. I now think that the rat is a grey squirrel that has moved into the back garden. I saw him on monday afternoon gathering hazel nuts from th bush near the house and yesterday morning he ran up the pergola near the railway and jumped the gap to the second pergola which runs alongside. He is taking a chance with 9 West Highland Terriers loose in the garden! Anyway, it is a bit of a chore having to cover a lot of the line and remove the covers before running trains but that is a lot easier than having to excavate the line each time.
Chris

 

[Christine Brooks]

I am still getting visits from the squirrel etc. I have edged all the station area with bricks which seems to have stopped him there and they also pass as platforms for now. I hammered in old roof tiles on edge along the track where there are signes of digging which has helped. I read an article in Garden Railroad News ( an online American magazine ) which stated that sonic mole reppellers worked. They must be better made in the USA as all the items I found available here had dreadful reveiws, in one case the reveiwer said that squirells sat on the device ! I won't be wasting my money and will jut have to grin and bear it and have a track clearing session when I want to run any trains.
Chris

 

[kristopher1805]

lovely layout I always fancied a garden railway but as to the narrow gauge I content myself with OO9 so I very much like what you have, maybe when I do finally retire about 2525 I might get around to it.

 

[Christine Brooks]

Thanks for the appreciation. I am learning fast about building and maintaining a garden railway, it is definately model engineering! Chris

 

[Babz]

Hi Christine Hope you are well and still doing your Garden Railway. Just thought I would share my latest purchase secondhand. For my Swiss Rhb collection. Merry Christmas to you and a Better New Year. Babs

 

[Christine Brooks]

Hi Christine Hope you are well and still doing your Garden Railway. Just thought I would share my latest purchase secondhand. For my Swiss Rhb collection. Merry Christmas to you and a Better New Year. Babs

Hello Babs. Looks like a great Christmas Present! Sorry for not seeing this sooner but I have been concerned about one of our Oriental Cats who has a tummy infection which the vet can't get to the bottom of ( no pun intended!). She has 6 kittens about 4 weeks old and we ope they will not catch it.
Let's hhope this year will start to get back to normal.
Happy New Year, Chris

 

[Babz]

Hi Christine Sorry to hear about your Cat. I am a cat lover myself they make me smile everyday I see them on FB. Take care of the kittens. My favourite is a dark Grey British short hair. TTFN. Babs

 

[Christine Brooks]

Hi Christine Sorry to hear about your Cat. I am a cat lover myself they make me smile everyday I see them on FB. Take care of the kittens. My favourite is a dark Grey British short hair. TTFN. Babs

Hello Babs, I know this is off topic but we have a nice oriental blue tortie who will be looking for a home soon!
Chris

 

[Christine Brooks]

I thought I would share a little of what of have been up to over the last few months ( not that much )! I made up some covers to go over the track where the squirrel had been shovelling the stone onto the track. This seemed to work and by the Winter he had gone and so far hasn't come back (yet!). I also had a rat who burrowed under the track at one point but that dissappeared after I put bait down in the chicken run. The joys of living in the country!
Recently I have made a water tower from a Piko kit. This made up very easily although the instructions are just a set of exploded drawings. Once I got the hang of them it was plain sailing. They even supplied to small tubes of UHU. You can seal the tank with the silicone sealant provided so that it can be filled with water and emptied through the delivery pipe. Why would you want to do that with an electric loco underneath? I didn't bother with that. The only real problem was putting the metal rings around the tank to hold it together, There are 9 of them of 3 different sizes. Not much between them so it was a case of trial and error. Here are a few pictures.

I gave it a coat of matt varnish to tone down the glossiness a bit and here it is outside in teh sunshine yesterday.